Here's what Obama says is the biggest frustration of his presidency

President Barack Obama. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst President Barack Obama says one elusive goal has frustrated him more than all others.

In an interview published Thursday by the BBC, Obama said the failure to curb mass shootings by enacting gun-control legislation or other gun-safety measures had been the most "distressing" part of his presidency.

"If you ask me where has been the one area that I feel that I've been most frustrated and most stymied, it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws even in the face of repeated mass killings," he said.

"For us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing," he added.

Obama has repeatedly advocated stronger gun-control policies after mass shootings throughout his presidency.

After the shooting of nine parishioners at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, last month, Obama gave a solemn news conference at the White House in which he scolded lawmakers for failing to pass gun-control measures despite numerous high-profile mass shootings.

"I've had to make statements like this too many times," Obama said.

"At some point," he added, "we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other developed countries."

The administration has been thwarted in its efforts to pass gun-control reforms.

The last major legislative push came after a December 2012 massacre at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, left 20 children and six adults dead. That time, several different gun-control measures including background checks and a ban on high-capacity magazines failed in the Senate.

Despite the legislative setbacks, Obama told the BBC he wouldn't stop pursuing goals that could lower the number of mass shootings.